I've been building web applications since 1997. In nearly every app I write most of the time is spent gathering and sorting the data, not in presenting the page.
If one of my pages takes 7 seconds to come up, I can almost guarentee that the query is 6.x seconds. For that reason, I agree, language speed isn't that critical to me. What matters is: How easy is it to write/maintain? Will the language be supported? Can we hire guys that know it? Is it hard to learn?
I'm not very good with chemistry but here's two that I thought were neat.
1) Fill fish tank with water. 2) Put rosen on the surface of the tank. 3) Put hand in the tank. 4) Observe that as you pull your hand out of the water it's totally dry.
1) Fill glass with ice. 2) Fill same glass the rest of the way with water. 3) Observe that the ice is sticking above the rim of the glass and the water is up to the very rim. 4) As ice melts, the water level doesn't change *at all*. The amount that the ice sticks out is equal to the the amount that water expanded as it turned to ice.
I recently took a course from my employer's patent lawyers. They explained what the patent system is about when you might want to use it.
The reason that countries set up patents is to protect investments and to share discoveries. Prior to taking my course, I thought that the patent system was solely for the first reason. However, if you don't share the details of your discovery you can always keep it as a trade secret.
The idea behind sharing it (getting a patent) is this.
1) You are granted a 20 year monopoly on the idea. 2) Other people are free to look at the details of your idea and improve on it.
It's that second point that makes the patent system valuable. If you just sell your idea/product without getting a patent then you're not helping the rest of the world. If you get a patent, I'm free to look at what you did and improve on it. (Ok, open source is even more free that way but it doesn't help you make money with a 20 year monopoly on your idea.)
The other option is a trade secret. If you can't easily detect how your competitor is doing "their thing" then your patent isn't really enforceable anyway. Rather than sharing your secret via a patent you might just keep it to yourself and copywrite your code.
Wait a minute? You read the article? What are you doing here? By reading the article you have violated slashdot eticate (yeah, I know I mispelled etiquette, it's part of the protocal).
You're grounded. Please stay away for one entire week.;-)
I'm attempting not to sound racist here but please understand that my experience here is broad and not based on just a few people.
You're right. Indian programmers in paticular will list just about any technology that they have even run across. I've interviewed people who listed things because somebody they worked with used it.
I've given some thought to this and I think it's a cultural difference in morals. I have deep respect for Indians, I truly do. I decided to adopt some of their parenting ideas as my own. I've also decided to look at the love and forgiveness I often see in Indian marriages and use it as a model for my own.
However, with regards to inflating resumes (and stealing software) there is nothing redeemable about the normal practice in an Indian resume. Ok, I'm sure I sound like a jerk. However, some business practices are simply different across cultures and this is one of them.
FYI, not only have I worked with little kids but I have a three year old daughter and she does struggle with the pc mouse. That's why her "leaptop" (a children's toy designed like a laptop that teaches the alphabet) has no mouse at all.
However, designing computers for children so young that they can't even read is a poor practice.
Thank you for the well thought out reply. This takes us to the "easy to use" vs. "easy to learn". I'll admit that it might take a few hours to get used to what sort of thing you might expect to find under the right button vs. the left.
However, a *little* effort spent learning will pay off. I'm stuck with a mac that has only one button and now I have to hit ctrl every time I want to right click.
Apple needs to move to two butons. The idea that one button is "easier" is stupid. (Ok, I know yu didn't say it was. I'm just on my soapbox.) Have you ever seen little kid working a playstation control? If a five year old can do it so can my mother.
As for moving to a USB mouse, I have an iBook. Connecting it to a mouse doesn't work for me because I normally use it from my couch. If Steve can swallow his pride and take money from msft then he can admit he was wrong about the one button mouse.
I used the same word in my response, 'discipline'. It's not always going to be fun but a degree will be required in a decade or so. All you need to do is look at the other engineering professions and you'll see where our's is headed.
Vanguard
I got my degree this way. I started in day school (like you) but after two years I decided to work during the day and get my degree at night (Drexel U).
For the next five years I went to night school all year round before I ended up with two BS degrees. It can be done but it's a lot of work. Now I'm working on a comp sci master's degree at NC State and holding down a full time job. Sometimes the courses are interesting and occasionaly even fun. However, most of the time it's just a test of your discipline.
I don't regret it for one minute. You'll be busy all the time. You'll spend years knowing that you have assignments due soon. It's a drag. However, getting your degree is critical in this profession. In a decade, it will be odd to find somebody without a degree. Also, with in influx of H1B employees who started with a student visa, you'll find more and more people with advanced degrees.
I was talking to a guy who's father is an Electrical Engineer. When he got into the profession decades ago when a degree was optional. As times passed he knew that he did not qualify for his current job. He knew that if he was laid off he'd be out of luck. Also, his co-workers looked at him a little differently because he didn't have a formal education.
Comp Sci is in the same position now. You can get by without a degree. However, it won't stay that way.
Bitter, well that's a little strong. I'm mostly just trying to get people (Timothy) to understand the impact of stealing.
As for your comments on the business model, I agree completely. Even with the employee discount I sometimes buy an SMC or linksys products for my house. Cisco really shines when you need support
In my house, downtime isn't expensive therefore my equipment can be cheap. If your business is the same then you can also buy cheap stuff.
As for requiring a support contract, yeah I see your point there too. Our support is very good and it costs more. That's true with most companys in the "enterprise" space.
they are no more obligated to support java than pepsi is to support coca-cola
Ok, point taken. However, MS owns the desktop. As a monopolist they are obligated to make sure that software runs on their system. You're simply not allowed to take actions to kill applications that run on your platform when you own a monopoly.
Remember "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run"? They've always done that and they are still doing it. That's why the government needs to step in and do something.
I work at cisco, I promise you they don't want you to download software that you haven't paid for. I'll admit that our systems let you do that. That's because they care more about customer sastisfaction than the money they lost from downloads. (Besides, companys don't pirate as badly as individuals.)
Anyway, the information you're spreading is incorrect. Just because you can download it doesn't mean you're entitled to it.
I work at Cisco, things are tough right now. The company is making money but did you know that they haven't given raises to their employees in two years? Did you know that plan on going at least one more before they give out a raise?
Did you know that they have cut promotions to 3% per year? I'll do that math for you. As a Cisco employee you can expect a promotion every 33 years. Not that it matters because if you do get promoted all you get are stock options with no raise.
Did you know that they have their "active management" guns blaring at full speed? This means that the managers are forced to cut 5% of their staff every quarter. (In fairness, they seem to actually cut less than that). However, they have certainly reduced their staff by over 20% in the past two years. There aren't any slackers left at the company.
Thank you for handing out information regarding how to steal our products.
Vanguard --------------------
I understand that some of have it even worse. Some of you are not employed at all. I feel for you.
Re:Just another Typical Dot Bomb?
on
eSuds
·
· Score: 2
Getting machine availablity is a killer feature. Or at least it would have been when I went to college. It seems like everybody around here already has an option better than pumping rolls of quarters into the machine. However, when I read about the direct billing I thought that would have been nice too.
Cisco uses that crap too. I guess it works but it lacks the polish that *every* other IM client provides. For example, no smiley faces, when I disconnect from the network I get two alert boxes that I have to click "Ok" on, it doesn't seem to start minimized in my windows tray, etc.
I don't know why Cisco bought it.
If you're a beginning OS buff then I'm a pre-beginner. I've taken an OS course for my CS Master's and I read the dinosaur book cover to cover twice. I'm not an expert but I know a little something.
Anyway, I didn't think that OSX was a true microkernel. If it was a true microkernel wouldn't there be a BSD process (or whatever) running? AFAIK, there isn't and that prevents all the speed problems associated with microkernels and their switching between user mode and kernel mode.
is someone who regards plugging CAT5 cables into a hub to be 'too complicated' going to be able to set up any security that is not completely out of the box
Are you kidding? The beauty of wireless isn't that it's simple, it's that you don't need wires. I'm typing on my wireless notebook right now as I kick back on my couch. Being tied down by an ethernet cable would suck.
You may not mean it but you come off a bit arrogant when you suggest that you're smarter than all the people buying wireless hubs at the local retail outlets.
Cisco is working towards moving all their web based applications to tomcat. Just about all their new applications are being written there.
Tomcat works for us. Regarding speed, if everybody says it's slow then maybe they're right. However, in my experience it's the database interaction that's slow, not the java code. Tuning the query can cut seconds, tuning the java cuts milliseconds. It's hard to fuss too much about the milliseconds when there is low hanging optimization fruit to be found in the sql.
I've lived in RTP for the last three+ years. I do truly love it. If you want to continue your education, work in technology, and raise a family it's perfect. However, I do have my concerns.
Most of the employers here are large companies and many of them have taken major hits (Cisco, IBM, Nortel, Lucent, etc.). The fact that there isn't a huge number of smaller companies has created a risk that 10,000 jobs will get slashed in a single bad day. It seems like 1,000 people are tossed on the street by Nortel or Lucent every day. Anyway, great area, not enough small employers. The same problem is awaiting Albany.
* The largest components (in order) were the Linux kernel (including device drivers), Mozilla (Netscape's open source web system including a web browser, email client, and HTML editor), the X window system (the infrastructure for the graphical user interface), gcc (a compilation system), gdb (for debugging), basic binary tools, emacs (a text editor and far more), LAPACK (a large Fortran library for numerical linear algebra), the Gimp (a bitmapped graphics editor), and MySQL (a relational database system).
Since the second largest part of the system is now Mozilla and not gcc mabye we should stop calling it GNU/Linux and start calling it Mozilla/Linux.:-)
Why would a cable modem provider have caps on their service at all? It seems to me that if the service isn't busy then somebody gets great service. If the service is busy than everybody shares whatever bandwidth is available.
What would motivate an ISP to prevent their users from using all the bandwidth that they can provide? Why would they try to keep the service only partially utilized?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been building web applications since 1997. In nearly every app I write most of the time is spent gathering and sorting the data, not in presenting the page.
If one of my pages takes 7 seconds to come up, I can almost guarentee that the query is 6.x seconds. For that reason, I agree, language speed isn't that critical to me. What matters is: How easy is it to write/maintain? Will the language be supported? Can we hire guys that know it? Is it hard to learn?
I'm not very good with chemistry but here's two that I thought were neat.
1) Fill fish tank with water.
2) Put rosen on the surface of the tank.
3) Put hand in the tank.
4) Observe that as you pull your hand out of the water it's totally dry.
1) Fill glass with ice.
2) Fill same glass the rest of the way with water.
3) Observe that the ice is sticking above the rim of the glass and the water is up to the very rim.
4) As ice melts, the water level doesn't change *at all*. The amount that the ice sticks out is equal to the the amount that water expanded as it turned to ice.
Vanguard
this is the body of the message
Friends,
I recently took a course from my employer's patent lawyers. They explained what the patent system is about when you might want to use it.
The reason that countries set up patents is to protect investments and to share discoveries. Prior to taking my course, I thought that the patent system was solely for the first reason. However, if you don't share the details of your discovery you can always keep it as a trade secret.
The idea behind sharing it (getting a patent) is this.
1) You are granted a 20 year monopoly on the idea.
2) Other people are free to look at the details of your idea and improve on it.
It's that second point that makes the patent system valuable. If you just sell your idea/product without getting a patent then you're not helping the rest of the world. If you get a patent, I'm free to look at what you did and improve on it. (Ok, open source is even more free that way but it doesn't help you make money with a 20 year monopoly on your idea.)
The other option is a trade secret. If you can't easily detect how your competitor is doing "their thing" then your patent isn't really enforceable anyway. Rather than sharing your secret via a patent you might just keep it to yourself and copywrite your code.
Vanguard
Wait a minute? You read the article? What are you doing here? By reading the article you have violated slashdot eticate (yeah, I know I mispelled etiquette, it's part of the protocal).
;-)
You're grounded. Please stay away for one entire week.
Vanguard
I'm attempting not to sound racist here but please understand that my experience here is broad and not based on just a few people.
You're right. Indian programmers in paticular will list just about any technology that they have even run across. I've interviewed people who listed things because somebody they worked with used it.
I've given some thought to this and I think it's a cultural difference in morals. I have deep respect for Indians, I truly do. I decided to adopt some of their parenting ideas as my own. I've also decided to look at the love and forgiveness I often see in Indian marriages and use it as a model for my own.
However, with regards to inflating resumes (and stealing software) there is nothing redeemable about the normal practice in an Indian resume. Ok, I'm sure I sound like a jerk. However, some business practices are simply different across cultures and this is one of them.
Vanguard
FYI, not only have I worked with little kids but I have a three year old daughter and she does struggle with the pc mouse. That's why her "leaptop" (a children's toy designed like a laptop that teaches the alphabet) has no mouse at all.
However, designing computers for children so young that they can't even read is a poor practice.
Thank you for the well thought out reply. This takes us to the "easy to use" vs. "easy to learn". I'll admit that it might take a few hours to get used to what sort of thing you might expect to find under the right button vs. the left.
However, a *little* effort spent learning will pay off. I'm stuck with a mac that has only one button and now I have to hit ctrl every time I want to right click.
Apple needs to move to two butons. The idea that one button is "easier" is stupid. (Ok, I know yu didn't say it was. I'm just on my soapbox.) Have you ever seen little kid working a playstation control? If a five year old can do it so can my mother.
As for moving to a USB mouse, I have an iBook. Connecting it to a mouse doesn't work for me because I normally use it from my couch. If Steve can swallow his pride and take money from msft then he can admit he was wrong about the one button mouse.
Vanguard
I used the same word in my response, 'discipline'. It's not always going to be fun but a degree will be required in a decade or so. All you need to do is look at the other engineering professions and you'll see where our's is headed. Vanguard
I got my degree this way. I started in day school (like you) but after two years I decided to work during the day and get my degree at night (Drexel U).
For the next five years I went to night school all year round before I ended up with two BS degrees. It can be done but it's a lot of work. Now I'm working on a comp sci master's degree at NC State and holding down a full time job. Sometimes the courses are interesting and occasionaly even fun. However, most of the time it's just a test of your discipline.
I don't regret it for one minute. You'll be busy all the time. You'll spend years knowing that you have assignments due soon. It's a drag. However, getting your degree is critical in this profession. In a decade, it will be odd to find somebody without a degree. Also, with in influx of H1B employees who started with a student visa, you'll find more and more people with advanced degrees.
I was talking to a guy who's father is an Electrical Engineer. When he got into the profession decades ago when a degree was optional. As times passed he knew that he did not qualify for his current job. He knew that if he was laid off he'd be out of luck. Also, his co-workers looked at him a little differently because he didn't have a formal education.
Comp Sci is in the same position now. You can get by without a degree. However, it won't stay that way.
Do it, you need to.
Vanguard
Excellent though the book was
Yes, wise young jedi you are.
Bitter, well that's a little strong. I'm mostly just trying to get people (Timothy) to understand the impact of stealing. As for your comments on the business model, I agree completely. Even with the employee discount I sometimes buy an SMC or linksys products for my house. Cisco really shines when you need support
In my house, downtime isn't expensive therefore my equipment can be cheap. If your business is the same then you can also buy cheap stuff.
As for requiring a support contract, yeah I see your point there too. Our support is very good and it costs more. That's true with most companys in the "enterprise" space.
they are no more obligated to support java than pepsi is to support coca-cola
Ok, point taken. However, MS owns the desktop. As a monopolist they are obligated to make sure that software runs on their system. You're simply not allowed to take actions to kill applications that run on your platform when you own a monopoly.
Remember "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run"? They've always done that and they are still doing it. That's why the government needs to step in and do something.
I work at cisco, I promise you they don't want you to download software that you haven't paid for. I'll admit that our systems let you do that. That's because they care more about customer sastisfaction than the money they lost from downloads. (Besides, companys don't pirate as badly as individuals.)
Anyway, the information you're spreading is incorrect. Just because you can download it doesn't mean you're entitled to it.
Vanguard
I work at Cisco, things are tough right now. The company is making money but did you know that they haven't given raises to their employees in two years? Did you know that plan on going at least one more before they give out a raise?
Did you know that they have cut promotions to 3% per year? I'll do that math for you. As a Cisco employee you can expect a promotion every 33 years. Not that it matters because if you do get promoted all you get are stock options with no raise.
Did you know that they have their "active management" guns blaring at full speed? This means that the managers are forced to cut 5% of their staff every quarter. (In fairness, they seem to actually cut less than that). However, they have certainly reduced their staff by over 20% in the past two years. There aren't any slackers left at the company.
Thank you for handing out information regarding how to steal our products.
Vanguard
--------------------
I understand that some of have it even worse. Some of you are not employed at all. I feel for you.
Getting machine availablity is a killer feature. Or at least it would have been when I went to college. It seems like everybody around here already has an option better than pumping rolls of quarters into the machine. However, when I read about the direct billing I thought that would have been nice too.
Cisco uses that crap too. I guess it works but it lacks the polish that *every* other IM client provides. For example, no smiley faces, when I disconnect from the network I get two alert boxes that I have to click "Ok" on, it doesn't seem to start minimized in my windows tray, etc. I don't know why Cisco bought it.
If you're a beginning OS buff then I'm a pre-beginner. I've taken an OS course for my CS Master's and I read the dinosaur book cover to cover twice. I'm not an expert but I know a little something.
Anyway, I didn't think that OSX was a true microkernel. If it was a true microkernel wouldn't there be a BSD process (or whatever) running? AFAIK, there isn't and that prevents all the speed problems associated with microkernels and their switching between user mode and kernel mode.
Thoughts?
is someone who regards plugging CAT5 cables into a hub to be 'too complicated' going to be able to set up any security that is not completely out of the box
Are you kidding? The beauty of wireless isn't that it's simple, it's that you don't need wires. I'm typing on my wireless notebook right now as I kick back on my couch. Being tied down by an ethernet cable would suck.
You may not mean it but you come off a bit arrogant when you suggest that you're smarter than all the people buying wireless hubs at the local retail outlets.
Cisco is working towards moving all their web based applications to tomcat. Just about all their new applications are being written there.
Tomcat works for us. Regarding speed, if everybody says it's slow then maybe they're right. However, in my experience it's the database interaction that's slow, not the java code. Tuning the query can cut seconds, tuning the java cuts milliseconds. It's hard to fuss too much about the milliseconds when there is low hanging optimization fruit to be found in the sql.
Vanguard
I've lived in RTP for the last three+ years. I do truly love it. If you want to continue your education, work in technology, and raise a family it's perfect. However, I do have my concerns.
Most of the employers here are large companies and many of them have taken major hits (Cisco, IBM, Nortel, Lucent, etc.). The fact that there isn't a huge number of smaller companies has created a risk that 10,000 jobs will get slashed in a single bad day. It seems like 1,000 people are tossed on the street by Nortel or Lucent every day. Anyway, great area, not enough small employers. The same problem is awaiting Albany.
Vanguard
* The largest components (in order) were the Linux kernel (including device drivers), Mozilla (Netscape's open source web system including a web browser, email client, and HTML editor), the X window system (the infrastructure for the graphical user interface), gcc (a compilation system), gdb (for debugging), basic binary tools, emacs (a text editor and far more), LAPACK (a large Fortran library for numerical linear algebra), the Gimp (a bitmapped graphics editor), and MySQL (a relational database system).
:-)
Since the second largest part of the system is now Mozilla and not gcc mabye we should stop calling it GNU/Linux and start calling it Mozilla/Linux.
Vanguard
Why would a cable modem provider have caps on their service at all? It seems to me that if the service isn't busy then somebody gets great service. If the service is busy than everybody shares whatever bandwidth is available.
What would motivate an ISP to prevent their users from using all the bandwidth that they can provide? Why would they try to keep the service only partially utilized?
Vanguard
Whenever I can't think of a good name I just go with the classic foo or foo.bar().
:)
Why not Foo Bar Lastname?